fooddata

Fooddata refers to structured information about food and its properties, including nutritional composition, ingredients, allergens, origin, processing methods, labeling, and safety metadata. It draws from laboratory analyses, manufacturers, regulatory agencies, and scientific literature and is organized for retrieval, analysis, and integration into applications and research.

Scope and formats: Data are stored in databases and often exposed through APIs, spreadsheets, or standardized formats such as CSV, JSON, or XML. Leading sources include USDA FoodData Central, EuroFIR, FAO/INFOODS, and EFSA, providing per-gram or per-serving values for energy, macronutrients, micronutrients, as well as ingredient and allergen information.

Applications: Nutrition assessment, diet planning, clinical research, public health surveillance, labeling compliance, product development, and supply-chain management. Fooddata enables dietary analysis, menu planning, allergen risk communication, and epidemiological studies by combining data from multiple sources.

Challenges: Ensuring data quality and harmonization across jurisdictions, updating datasets to reflect new products and formulations, and addressing gaps in coverage. Licensing, attribution, and the distinction between open and proprietary data can affect accessibility. Provenance, versioning, and standard definitions are important for reproducibility.

Related concepts: Nutrition data, food labeling, open data, and food safety databases.